Welcome To Housing Bi-Weekly Blog
Welcome To Housing Bi-Weekly Blog
Friday, April 17, 2026
Greetings Everyone!
Not to use a cliché, but this past couple of weeks makes me want to exclaim, “Where Do I Start?”
Everything has been coming at me like rapid fire from a Super Soaker.
The person who arranged for us to have our Mentor through SCORE (Service Corps Of Retired Executives) emailed me a while back and announced that WTH could be nominated for an award as it relates to our success with said Mentor, Dennis Wint.
Here’s the email we received:
Hi, Chris. This is David Green from SCORE.
Every year SCORE holds our "Success Awards" for clients who have done well in their fields. Dennis and I think that Welcome To Housing is a good candidate for an award.
Award winners get featured in our annual report (see the 2025 report below) and get posted on our LinkedIn page.
Dennis and I can support you with your application. We don't have many nonprofits who qualify...
What we will need from you, Chris, is a summary of achievements ***since you started:
Years in operation
Number of volunteers by year
Number of sponsors by year
Number of clients served by year
Grants / donations by year
Social media growth by year
Impact on the environment (reuse of household goods that may have gone to the landfill)?
How SCORE (Dennis) has helped you
*** Editor’s note from me, Christopher. The records going back to 2011 aren’t as well kept as they are these days between the outgoing inventory done by Melony Stockley and the bulk of the warehouse volunteer records thanks to Jan Doucette.
SO the scramble is on to pull everything together and so far, it’s working, Jan and Melony are both on point and the other information is easy enough and David said it’s okay to just go back a few years. Either way, the things we learn are things that can be intertwined into grant narratives and proposals.
Speaking of proposals, I wrote one up today and emailed it off to the contact I was given at Lowe’s in Brewer. Our door at 333 that’s used the most is a glass framed door with two sidelights, which are fixed full length, but narrower panes of glass. The door itself has been used so much over the years, and between its use and abuse and rust and warping it really NEEDS to go. Back when the four volunteers who were carpenters from several different Mason lodges, one of them measured the space if you were to take out the door and sidelights and it’s just the right size to put in a nice exterior French/double door.
Next week the solar array will be installed and as it turns out, the owner told me in a text that they’re giving us extra power for no extra cost.
April 16, 2026
I can share the VERY BUSY media release text from what I sent out yesterday.
Welcome To Housing Home Goods Bank, Inc. (WTH) an All-Volunteer Driven 501(c)(3) nonprofit furniture bank has a LOT going on this spring! WTH provides furniture, home essentials and adaptive equipment at NO CHARGE to people who are starting over from a myriad of circumstances. This October will mark the
organization’s 15th Anniversary.
This Saturday, April 18th, starting at 11:00am, 15-20 members of University of Maine fraternity,
Theta Chi will be on hand to help with cleaning and sorting at 333 Main Street in Old Town, a 6,400+/-
square foot 1820s house used as a warehouse. Founder and Board of Trustees President, Christopher Olsen says their looking forward to the help. Working with Brent Barry, the Fraternity’s Community Service Chair, Olsen says there’s a chance that Theta Chi will come back in the fall to help carpenters repair the building’s wraparound porch. (Brent Barry (978) 434-7248)
All through the month of April, people can support WTH by purchasing Hannaford Community Bags (the blue ones) at the Hogan Road Hannaford #8110. According to Store Manager, Vic Wood, when shoppers purchase one of the blue Community Bags for $2.50, one dollar of that purchase price will go to Welcome To Housing.
(Vic Wood, (207) 947-6735) Welcome To Housing also takes part in the Hannaford “Clynk” program. People returning bottles and cans through the program can designate the funds to the nonprofit. WTH’s Chris Olsen says they have scannable Clynk stickers and can provide Clynk bags if clubs or organizations are interested in doing a returnable drive for the nonprofit. Call or Text Olsen at (207) 745-1287 for more information.
This coming week, Olsen was proud to announce that Black Bear Solar will be installing a system on the roof of their building at 333 Main Street in Old Town. The system is completely funded by a pair of grants received through the Penobscot County Commission from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. Olsen says it will help greatly as the main heat source is a three-unit heat pump system. The building is owned free and clear thanks to a grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation. Owner of Black Bear Solar, Jim O’Connor shared details of the system they’re installing for the nonprofit:
“Welcome to Housing will be installing a 10.56-kilowatt solar array with the help of local company Black Bear Solar. The system will include 24 solar panels on the roof of the building and produce approximately 13,500 kilowatt hours of power per year which will alleviate cost of their electric bill. This system will help Welcome To Housing save approximately $150,000 in electrical cost over the next 25+ years. With the increasing volatility in energy cost and cost in general rising, this will secure clean energy for Welcome To Housing for years to come. Resourcing through a local installer allowed Welcome To Housing the ability to cater the system to their budget to cover nearly 80% of their electric cost which will allow them to put money back into their
mission.” (Jim O’Connor (207) 660-8487)
Welcome To Housing helps individuals (including Veterans) and families as well as shelter programs and
sober living homes. People starting over from shelters, escaping domestic violence, displaced by disasters like house fires, immigrants moving to Maine, people reentering the community from corrections, and anyone else in need. Olsen says with no geographic restrictions, they serve people from all over Maine, referred to the
program by nearly 80 different agencies and organizations. In 2024, WTH helped keep an estimated
46.8 tons of furniture and other materials from going into the waste stream prematurely.
I’m back. Thanks go to Craig Saunders for MANY things, but the most recent thing relates to something we have NEVER done before. We’ve applied multiple times to some foundations that have turned us down, due to competition for funds, etc. but after receiving a $20,000 from the Narragansett Number One Foundation, according to Craig who contacted NNOF.
April 17, 2026
I’m Baaaaaack. Anyway, over the next few days, we’re going to look over the successful grant’s narrative for the NNOF folks and update it. Wonderful thing happened too, the University of Maine Professor that’s helped us for years, the same one whose class WROTE that successful narrative, sent me a great NATIONAL report from last year that examines the facts/figures and more on how “Furniture Poverty” can affect people’s lives.
Furniture poverty
The Furnish Together coalition introduces a standard definition of furniture poverty as:
The inability to access, afford, or maintain essential household furniture and goods for a functional, safe, and healthy home.
The 2025 National Survey of Furniture Banks
In spring 2025, A Wider Circle, supported by several furniture banks from across the country, conducted a survey of 69 furniture banks in 30 states, representing over 1,100 combined years of experience. Key findings include:
● Individuals and families exiting homelessness are the top two groups served by furniture banks, followed by under-resourced single-parent households, and families fleeing domestic violence.
● 42% of furniture banks are only partially meeting or struggling to meet the demand from neighbors referred to their programs. The average number of clients on waitlists to receive furniture is over 100.
● Furniture banks report that 73% of their clients are experiencing severe furniture poverty, meaning they are missing three or more essential items. (Essential items include beds, tables, chairs, dressers/wardrobes, and kitchenware.)
● All furniture banks are focused on alleviating the impacts of furniture poverty. Many are also working to end it by advocating for universal access, the removal of financial and logistical barriers for individuals living in poverty, and the development of durable systems that foster consistent, scalable, and ongoing furniture support.
The 2025 National Household Furniture Poverty Survey
In spring 2025, A Wider Circle utilized a survey research company to reach 1,050 individuals, census-balanced on age, gender, and geographic region. Extrapolated data reveal the following trends:
● At the current point in time, 32% of people across the United States are experiencing furniture poverty; that is, they are unable to access, afford, or maintain one or more essential household furniture goods.
○ 2 in 10 households do not have enough beds for everyone to sleep on.
○ 3 in 10 do not have a couch to sit on or a dresser to store clothing in.
○ 4 in 10 are missing more than one critical item for a functional, safe, and healthy home.
● Across their lifespans, 66% of people have experienced furniture poverty at least once (and 20% experienced it three or more times).
● While no race, gender, or age group is immune from furniture poverty, there are some groups who are affected more than others:
furnishtogether.org
Needless to say, there’s a LOT of good things going on right now with Welcome To Housing Home Goods Bank, Incorporated.
I finished up a total of 5 different podcasts and didn’t realize they took FOREVER to upload the MP4 files on Spotify. MP3 is the audio file, and MP4s are video files. They don’t take long to upload on YouTube and I figured out today that they can also be uploaded on Twitter/X and LinkedIn. There is still no word on a newer platform called Bluesky, but chances are that it will eventually change for the better. Bluesky is like what Twitter was years ago before the tsunami of negative and political vibes took over.
I’m SURE there’s more stuff to share, but just remember, if shopping at the Hogan Road Hannaford in Bangor, don’t forget it’s the BLUE Community Bags that give us a $1.00 for every one of them sold at $2.50!
Have a great upcoming couple of weeks.
Sincerely yours,
Christopher K. Olsen
Founder and Board of Trustees President
welcometohousing@gmail.com
Call/Text: (207) 745-1287
